Daily Devotional

I have always looked for teachable moments with my kids with the goal of creating a hunger and thirst for God. One day a lesson came in a most unexpected way. It had been storming for a few days as the rains came down in torrential sheets off our patio covering. The flower bed on the left was now a four-inch-deep pond.

When the rain subsided, I stepped out onto the patio and looked to the left. Floating on the top of the pond were bones! I gasped when I realized all the bones came from my kids’ pets buried there over the years. We had a little graveyard of parakeets, cats, a Guinea pig, a rabbit and a turtle. Some of them had now showed up again as naturally cleaned bones.

My teenagers heard my gasp and stepped out to see. Much to my surprise, instead of being horrified, they were fascinated. They scooped up the bones for a closer look: “Here is the skull of my parakeet! Wow! So cool!” I jump onto my “teachable moment.” We had quite a fun conversation discussing God’s creative power:

Genesis 1: 20-21 “Then God said, ‘Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.’ And God created the great sea monsters, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.”

Our Creator made all His creatures so beautifully perfect—inside and out. I also could not help thinking of the familiar prophesy in Ezekiel, Chapter 37. There God spoke to the dried bones, representing the restoration of the covenant people of God and God’s control of history:

Ezekiel 37:5-6 "Thus says the Lord God to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life….and you will know that I am the Lord.’”

Not only can Almighty God make something out of nothing as described in Genesis; He can also make dead dry bones live. He can bring new life—new life in Christ, new bodies in glory and new life in old circumstances. We have a great and powerful God!

After our time of examination of all the pets’ bones, we respectfully buried the bones again—until the next rain. Maybe this time, the rabbit and the turtle will show up. How cool!

For Parents and Grandparents:
 

• The children never get tired of hearing how God made the world and all that is in it. Tell them again.
• Look online or at a book that shows the bones and muscles under the skin of animals. Point out how God is so creative and so powerful!

New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation